The UC Marketing Capstone Experience

Branding

June 19, 2017

After finally talking to someone else at Braxton I feel that we are moving in a better direction. My fear of that they didn't know we were working with them was confirmed but that also allowed us to ask a lot of questions. He provided us with data stuff and directions that we could move in for the project. Anyways, we are basically starting over in week 7 I think we will still get this done on time. Since we at least now know the direction that is a betterment for the project. I wish we could have linked up with people at Braxton earlier but we still almost have a couple of months to put this project together.

I have moved forward with putting a lot of thought into the coffee part of their brewery. I think there is a lot of potential there and they haven't really explore any of it since they have been working on the beer end so much. I am keeping to their message of being innovative and their co-branding theme they have been working. I know that they will be thrill with these new ideas, we just need to start collecting research on these ideas to support these messages.

As for the beer end, I think we have come up with a few new ideas but I will need to meet with David to see if we can do anything more exciting with that. David seems to be more interested in this end, which is great because I have felt a little lost with working on this end.

At least for now we finally have a direction and I know it is one in which we are not just guessing in the dark at what they want for the project. I like that Braxton likes to think big, so as long as we can deliver on that end I think we will meet what they are looking for. Now I just need to go over marketing notes and skills and see how I can cooperate them into the project.

June 12, 2017

We're making progress learning from stakeholders outside the Braxton organization. I made good contacts with Cincy Brew Bus and Craft Connection (the 2 leading brewery tour operators in the area), as well as Night Shift Limousine, which also considers brewery tours a key component of their business. I scheduled a meeting for Natalie and I to meet & interview the owner of Cincy Brew Bus tomorrow, which we're excited about!

We have a meeting with Braxton on Tuesday at the taproom. Unfortunately, it is only our 2nd meeting with them, so we need to be pointed about what our needs are and how we will use what we ask for to deliver value to Braxton, as well as the fact that it will be very difficult to deliver for them without more engagement than we've had so far.

I also visited Braxton Labs, their experimental brewery that just opened about 2 weeks ago in the back of the Party Source in Newport, KY. I was able to chat with 3 of the customers about the local brewery scene in general, and the Braxton/Graeter's Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip collaboration. They were excited to see the expansion, and very receptive to the "Labs" concept of testing new styles and recipes. The location in the Party Source was an advantage as well, with the variety/experimental concept a natural complement to the unrivaled variety offered by Party Source. Abundant parking was noted as an advantage compared to several other local breweries.

As far as Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip beer was concerned, 2 of the 3 people said they had been excited about it then let down that it "didn't live up to the hype". The 3rd person, who was not from the area, hadn't heard of it.

So, I'm excited for the week ahead, the insights it will bring, and driving alignment.

June 5, 2017

Natalie and I struggled a bit to find the right angle from which to approach our project. Our client, Braxton Brewing Co., has only been open since March 27, 2015. Even though Braxton's fundraising on Kickstarter literally went at a record-breaking pace (reaching their $30k initial goal within 35 hours, before closing the campaign at $71k a short time later), their growth rate since opening has still been much greater than even they themselves imagined possible. It's the kind of problem every entrepreneur dreams of. But needless to say, it also means every member of Braxton's small, family-based team is also even busier than they themselves imagined possible.

The project itself is to develop a strategy to maximize the value of Braxton's relationship with Graeter's, without Braxton losing their own identity and becoming simply "The Graeter's Beer Company" in consumers' minds.

So, in our desire not to be too demanding of our client's time, while trying to ensure our inquiries about Braxton and with Braxton's key partners such as Graeter's don't "go rogue", we ended up being too cautious so far. The fact that Braxton's core team is so talented also made us second-guess a little bit. A test of mettle, for us, Will you leave the shallows and dive down the deep blue, open ocean side of the reef to investigate the vibrant wall of life and color you came here to see? If so, will uncertainty or doubt tangle you up and sink you like a rogue fishing, or will you and your diving buddy use your gear and your training to methodically cut yourselves free of the tangle, check your air levels and each other's gear, and finding it intact, proceed to accomplish what you set out to do?

After productive discussions on Friday with Natalie and on Sunday with both Natalie and Drew, we have found our gear is intact and our air levels are good. I look forward to really hitting our stride this week, crafting a tightly focused charter to deliver significant insight and value to our client, and fearlessly applying the skills we've worked hard to develop in order to get here.

A crucial element of doing this is to understand what Braxton currently has as a "Brand Book". I just found a key piece of information in that regard. Nelten Small Batch is the designer/studio who did Braxton's graphic brand development, so contacting them, in addition to Graeter's, Brew Bus tour operators, and a 2nd meeting with the Braxton team, are top priorities this week.

June 4, 2017

After David and I met with Drew I think we are now moving onto a track that seems better for the project. As of right now, we are going to help full out more of Braxton's brand and add things that they can go into their brand book. We think they have a good foundation to marketing right now but we could help them focus in more on connection of that brand promise to the customers. So instead of their brand just telling the customers what they are, the people that are associated with the brand will believe that's who they are when they are with Braxton. We want people to come into Braxton because they are innovators seeking for the new edge; since that is what Braxton's promise is to the customers.

Hopefully, sometime this upcoming week we can meet with Braxton again and join our ideas together. I think after meeting Braxton again we will have a better idea of what type of research we need to start gathering. This week I think David and I should really focus on getting a meeting with Braxton set up and understand where to dig into the research part of the project. That way when we present our ideas we have reasons to believe that the customers will believe in Braxton's co-branding message to the public.

Looking forward to tomorrow's night class to see where others our at on the project and understanding the direction we need to keep heading in as a group.

May 15, 2017

On May 8th 2017, we had our official Capstone Kick off with Drew telling us about the course details like the structure, grading, about past projects, clients and of course how challenging this course is.I think it gave us an idea of what lies ahead and how much effort we have to put in for this course.Capstone had been the most awaited course for me as it is here that we actually get to work on an actual client project where we can apply things that we have learnt.I was eagerly waiting for my project and I am very happy that I got the project of a leading brand licensing company "Ripple Junction", as it was a project of my interest.

So, after getting to know about our project,I have started to research about the company and industry in which they operate.Also,we have set up our first meeting for Thursday this week wherein we will get a better understanding of what the client is looking for and their problem areas. As Drew had mentioned initially, this project requires a lot of data skills,which I am excited about as I like to work with data.I am really looking forward to this project and hope to come up with some concrete results which would be helpful for our client.

April 3, 2017

Last week, Team Behr submitted our survey that will provide the data to back up the secondary research and qualitative interviews we've done throughout the semester. This was a big milestone for us and an important step toward completing the project, and we were happy that our contact Lisa complimented our hard work and dedication in designing it.

Then, the next day, we got another dose of variability.

Lisa contacted us and said the company we had planned to have run the survey would not be charging $4.95 per response, as estimated. Instead, they were quoting an amount that worked out to $140 per response! (Apparently the targeted responses we are seeking could not be accomplished with a simple screening question, as estimated; the survey company would have to do some additional legwork to find people in the target.)

Behr has been fairly free with gift cards to reward our interview subjects, but a five-figure payout for 300 survey responses was a little more than they had expected. Luckily, they were able to pivot quickly. By the time we had responded saying we would investigate other possibilities for collecting survey responses, they were working industry connections with the same goal in mind. The new plan is to survey subscribers to an industry magazine. This won't give quite the random sample that was initially discussed, but it's an efficient (and hopefully inexpensive) way to find our target.

But that brings us to a new round of ambiguity. With the delay in implementing the survey, will we receive the data in time to analyze it, implement it into our report, and make the presentation in the next three weeks? Time will tell, but time is getting shorter day by day.

March 27, 2017

This week, Team Behr went searching for more insights. We interviewed paint store employees, homeowners who have hired painters, and the editor of a painting trade magazine, trying to discover if the people connected to professional painters could tell us anything about our target and whether anything distinguishes them from the rest of the pro segment.

One thing I've noticed about this project is how it has forced me to step outside my comfort zone when it comes to asking people for information. Walking into a paint store and explaining that you're a student who is working on a project and can you ask some questions about professional painters? That is definitely outside my comfort zone!

We also presented another draft of our survey to our contact, Lisa, who met with her colleagues and made final suggestions. Based on the questions they asked to add, it seems the team at Behr wants to know more about: a) why people become painters in the first place, and b) their use of digital tools to run their businesses. This is a more specific focus than we've previously discussed, and we know it's partly because of some research Behr recently obtained. We'll ask Lisa more questions at our next check-in to see what she's thinking.

Two meetings with Drew this week have helped us clarify the questions we're asking and given us a way forward. A recommendation for Behr is on its way! Now we just need to see if the survey we've designed confirms the hypotheses we've developed based on our interviews.

March 20, 2017

As we prepare for the second PR meeting with Drew, we also started preparing our phase 2 report and recommendations. We came up with several promotional messages and sales strategies. We used all the influence strategies to come up with a solid promotional base. It was surprising to see how the application of influence strategies made a significant difference in the ads. Apart from that, we have completed our second research that was specifically targeted to the Tide Pod users only.

We are now working on redesigning the website. The website will also have most of the influence strategies. We look forward to meeting with Drew. Just like the first day of the capstone class, I am equally excited and nervous for the upcoming tasks.

March 10, 2017

We are both glad that we met our client again this week. This time, we sat down and discussed our biggest survey together to make everything back on track.

We three, Stephanni, Jay and I, went through all the questions and choices to make it read smoothly and clear to understand. Moving some questions about time for consumers to attend to the beginning was the best option for us to clarify our purpose and state how the academy tours operate. In the meantime, how to ask participants to sign up or apply for our tours is another tricky question. We tried to make it more easy to accept instead of keeping participants away from us. In the demography part, we added the more important choice for people to choose: "prefer not to answer," which indeed care about their feelings of privacy and comfortable zone. Thus, it means that we also may lose some data to help us build crosstabs between gender and other questions.

We still kept working on the survey in the rest of week and wished could make it out before April. Designing is not my specialty, but I would never know how I can improve until I learn first. I felt relieved that we are back on track and looked forward to the distribution of our survey in the following weeks.

February 6, 2017

We have moved a step further in the research process. At this stage, we are confident about our big picture and the future goals. We had a meeting today with Professor Drew and he gave us a few insights that we did not earlier focus on. Now we have two different aspects of the same project. The meeting helped us understand the points that we did not consider in the previous phases. Now that we have a mixture of our understanding and Drew’s suggestions, my group and I are planning to work on it today.

We also discussed the persuasion class and I have a good feeling about it since one of our primary goals is to persuade the customers. On a side note, this class has taught me a lot about utilizing the time productively and making the most out of it!